Rohingya exodus to Bangladesh continues

Dhaka, Oct 28 (IANS) The influx of Rohingya refugees arriving in Bangladesh after fleeing violence in Myanmar continued on Saturday despite the two countries signing an agreement to stop the exodus.

“I do not see that the Rohingya influx has stopped. Normally, 1,000 to 2,000 Rohingyas enter Bangladesh daily, and it is continuing,” Shah Kamal, secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, told Efe news on Saturday.

“The influx did not stop. We cannot even say it has slowed down.”

According to the official, at least 500 Rohingyas entered the county on Friday.

He said that in the last four to five days, 500-700 Rohingyas had been arriving every day.

“We do not see any change in the number of Rohingyas entering Bangladesh after the agreement.”

In its latest report on Friday, the UN Inter Sector Coordination Group said that around 605,000 Rohingyas had arrived in Bangladesh in the last two months, excluding around 1,125 who had arrived a day before and had not been counted as they were still in transit.

The crisis began on August 25 when an insurgent group of the Rohingya Muslim minority staged a series of attacks on police and army posts in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, to which the Myanmar military responded with an ongoing large-scale offensive.

Myanmar does not consider the Rohingyas to be citizens, while Bangladesh, where around 300,000 Rohingyas were living before the start of the current crisis, also treats them as foreigners.